Queen Woo – K-drama Episode 2 Recap & Review

Two Choices 

Queen Woo Episode 2 starts with a flashback to 28 years ago, during the Goguryeo Dongmaeng Festival. Here, we meet a young Woo-hee who protects Eul Pa-so from a conman. Also at the festival was Go Na-mu, a young prince. Woo-hee’s skills impressed him and asked about her. 

The scene cuts to another flashback. In this scene, we are introduced to Woo-hee from eight years ago. At this time, she was a young woman, but she wanted to be a warrior. As her father watched her train, he grew concerned that she had big dreams for a woman. However, things took a turn when the Royal family asked the Woo family to give up their first daughter, Woo Sun, to marry the second prince.

Woo Sun refuses as she had hopes of marrying the Crown Prince and becoming the Queen. Out of fear, Woo Do threatened to kill Woo-sun and to save her sister and family, Woo-hee volunteered to marry the second prince and move to the Northern Region.

A few days later, Woo-hee was delivered to Go Na-mu, and they got married and lived happily in the Northern region. Go Na-mu allowed Woo-hee to continue training and loved her for who she was. She‌ grew to love the Northern region and Go Na-mu even though he had a reputation for being savage. She realised he was a man who deeply cared about his people and wanted to protect them.

We circle back to one hour before the King died and try to decipher what happened to him. After he met with Woo-hee, the king retired to his chambers for a bath. Among the maids preparing his bath was Woo-sun. She is Woo-hee’s head maid but scheming behind her sister’s back to sleep with the king. Go Na-mu is well aware of her intentions and keeps turning her away. This annoys Woo-sun, and she withdraws to her room to vent her frustrations. 

Like a snake, the Great Shaman, Sa-bi visits Woo-sun and offers her an elixir that will make Go Na-mu fall in love with her. Out of desperation, she agrees to help Sa-bi become the Chief Priest when she becomes queen. Sa-bi is convinced that Woo-sun will be the next queen as she has seen this in her prophecy. She gives Woo-sun the elixir and mentions only one drop is sufficient to make Go Na-mu fall head over heels for her. Out of greed, Woo-sun pours three drops and sends a drink to the King. She asks the maid to lie to Go Na-mu and claims the drink is from Woo-hee.

As they wait for the elixir to take effect, Sa-bi gives Woo-sun a drink with the potion and they end up making love. Woo-sun is so taken by the aphrodisiac that she starts hallucinating that she is sleeping with Go Na-mu.

After an intense romp in the sheets with Sa-bi, Woo-hee gets ready to visit Go Na-mu’s chambers. However, she senses trouble when she overhears the King’s maid crying after finding him dead on his bed. She rushes to her room and tests the elixir on her fish. The fish die immediately after she puts three drops in the water. Unfortunately, Woo-sun accidentally poisoned and killed the King!

Eul Pa-so and his right-hand man are the first to arrive on the scene. Eul Pa-so sends his man to only inform the queen, and that is how Woo-hee came to learn of her husband’s death. She then rushes to the King’s chambers and verifies he is dead. The other members of the Woo family also arrive at the chambers and quickly start planning how to save the queen.

The urgency of the situation is evident as they discuss the queen’s options. There is no heir, the king is dead and his enemies will certainly come for the Queen.

Eul Pa-so, Woo-so and Woo-do get into plotting a way out for the queen to save their family. If the third prince, Bal-ki, takes the throne, he will empower the Jwa family since he is married to their daughter. The Jwa family leader tried to rebel against Go Na-mu and was killed so they hold a grudge against the king and the queen.

If Pae Eui, the original Crown Prince who was banished returns to take the throne, the Woo family will suffer an even worse fate. The Woo family can only hope that the Wanddang army that had once sworn allegiance to the King and Queen will join the Woo-hee but that is still a big risk. 

In the end, Eul Pa-so suggests that the queen should run away or get into a levirate marriage with one of the King’s brothers, Bal-ki. Even though he is a prince, he will need justification to stand a chance at getting the throne. He can get the justification by marrying the queen and getting the support of the Woo family.

Bal-ki is known to be a savage and Woo-so quickly refuses to allow Woo-hee to marry him. However, she makes up her mind and agrees to the levirate marriage. Woo-sun tries to dissuade her sister, but Woo-hee is smart. She quickly figures out that Woo-sun is hiding something from her.

Meanwhile, Eul Pa-so sends his man to arrest everyone who served the King that day. He is trying to keep the King’s death a secret to give the Queen enough time to escape while also trying to find out the truth. It is agreed that the Queen will travel to Bal-ki’s region and convince him to marry her. For their plan to work, Queen Woo has to return with Bal-ki the next day before the Jega conference. Woo-soo worries that the journey might be dangerous, but Eul Pa-so mentions that Mu-gol, the trusted king’s warrior, will protect the queen.

Mu-gol is released from prison and Eul pa-so notifies him that the king is dead. Mu-gol assumes that the king might have died from his wounds and considers committing suicide. However, Eul Pa-so reminds him of the King’s orders to protect Queen Woo if something ever happens to him. Mu-gol sets off to hire a new horseman, Mo-chi. Mo-chi used to be part of Wangdang and was kicked out. Now he is drowning in gambling debt and agrees to help Mu-gol for a hefty sum of money.

Before leaving, Queen Woo frees Go Na-mu’s messenger bird and leaves a note about her next chess game. She remains optimistic that she will return and finish the game with Eul Pa-so. The Queen and the Woo family quickly make preparations to sneak the queen out of the palace before nightfall. Everyone is anxious about the journey and convincing Bal-ki to marry Queen Woo. Woo-do orders Woo-sun to make sure that Queen Woo will seduce Bal-ki by all means possible.

With everything set, the queen, led by Mo-chi and Mu-gol, sneaks out of the palace. As soon as they leave, Eul Pa-so orders the guards to lock the gates and puts Wangdang soldiers all over the palace for protection. He also continues looking into the King’s death and discovers Go Na-mu was poisoned. He summons the royal physician from the palace jail and orders him to find the culprit.

Speaking of the culprit, someone tries to send a message to alert the people outside the palace that the King is dead. Eul Pa-so had anticipated this and had ordered his men to kill all the messenger birds leaving the palace, but one bird escaped. Eul Pa-so retrieves the vinegar-written message from one of the birds and deciphers the message. He quickly realises that there is a spy among them and the queen is in grave danger.

The bird that escaped delivers the message to Myeong-rim. The letter informs him that the king is dead, and the queen has left the palace to meet with Prince Bal-ki. They also ask Myeong-rim to send an assassin to kill the Queen.

The Episode Review

The death of King Go Na-mu put Queen Woo in a worse position than she was before. If she was dethroned, the King would have at least done his best to protect her. Now, she is facing all of her enemies without the protection of her husband and is running out of time. With news of the King’s death already finding its way to her enemies, she might not even make it safely to Bal-ki’s region.

It is also not lost on us that her sister Woo-sun is the culprit. Who knows what Woo-sun will do to hide her secret and try to stop Woo-hee from becoming a queen again? Was the shaman using her to kill the King or was it just a coincidence that Woo-sun accidentally killed Go Na-mu? I am also not sure Eul Pa-so should trust his right-hand man. That man intentionally let that one messenger bird get away. Is he The Hidden One? 

This episode sets the stage to welcome Lee Soo-hyuk, who will play the role of Prince Bal-ki. Will he be a foe or an enemy to the queen?